How much a stock's price changes over time is important for most investors, since price performance can both impact your investment portfolio and help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.

Another factor that can influence investors is FOMO, or the fear of missing out, especially with tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.

What if you'd invested in Southern Copper (SCCO) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to SCCO for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?

Southern Copper's Business In-Depth

With that in mind, let's take a look at Southern Copper's main business drivers.

Phoenix, AZ-based Southern Copper Corporation engages in mining, exploring, smelting, and refining copper and other minerals. The company conducts exploration activities in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru.

Southern Copper has the largest copper reserves in the industry and operates high-quality, world-class assets in investment grade countries, such as Mexico and Peru.

Southern Copper reports results under three reportable segments. Each consist of a groups of mines with similar economic characteristics, type of products, processes and support facilities, regulatory environments as well as employee bargaining contracts.

Peruvian operations (around 36% of the company's revenues) includes the Toquepala and Cuajone mine complexes and the smelting and refining plants, industrial railroad and port facilities that service both mines. The Peruvian operations produce copper, with significant by-product production of molybdenum, silver and other materials.

Mexican Open-Pit (58% of revenues) includes La Caridad and Buenavista mine complexes, the smelting and refining plants and support facilities, which service both mines. The Mexican open pit operations produce copper, with significant by-product production of molybdenum, silver and other materials.

Mexican underground operations (6% of revenues) (IMMSA unit) includes five underground mines that produce zinc, lead, copper, silver and gold, a coal mine which produces coal and coke, and several industrial processing facilities for zinc, copper and silver.

The geographic breakdown of the company’s sales is as follows – Americas (50% of revenues), Europe (32%) and Asia (18%).

Approximately 80% of the company’s revenue come from the sale of copper, 6% from molybdenum and 10% from silver and zinc.

Bottom Line

While anyone can invest, building a lucrative investment portfolio takes research, patience, and a little bit of risk. If you had invested in Southern Copper ten years ago, you're probably feeling pretty good about your investment today.